Archives For March 2014

Your pal Mr. Grimm here. It would appear that this is what is being referred to as Throwback Thursdays. Don’t worry, I’m working on improving the name. Also It’s actually friday so HAPPY PIE DAY! if you don’t get it I’m not slowing down for you.

It just makes sense to do report on this oft forgotten classic considering yesterday’s (day before, whatever) article. Tecmo’s Deception came out in 1996 and without a doubt stood alone as a unique game. Rather than placing you in the role of the hero you were the tragically betrayed prince of a country, you struck a deal with Satan as your body burned to a crisp at the stake. With polygons reminiscent of Lara Crofts weaponized bewbage you wreak unholy vengeance against the denizens of your once beloved kingdom that are foolish enough to invade your/Satan’s mansion. Tecmo didn’t just give you a weapon and tell you to go to town either. No. You had to be smart. You built floors, designed rooms, and lay traps for these foolish ‘heroes’ to fall into and become fodder for your ever expanding house of horrors.

The game starts out simple enough. Knock out some thieves. Bump off a few lost tourists. No big deal. Then it all takes a sinister turn as people with less selfish goals turn up. My dad, toughest guy I know, had to quit playing when he reached a level that asked him to trap and kill two heroes that were hoping to kill you in order to collect the reward and save their sick daughter’s life. How’s that for feels? At one point the former love of your life wanders in and guess what, you kill her. A lot. This game gives you the option of letting her rest in peace or harvest her soul and turn her into a frankenstein monster that kills on command for you with unwavering loyalty. In 1996 this was groundbreaking. Even today that’s sort of twisted! If you are at all into the macabre check this game out. Its a Ps1 classic, shouldn’t be too hard to dig up for a good price/free.

Good day gaming gremlins! Today I want to bring to light a hidden gem I uncovered this morning. Deception IV. Now what we have here is the fifth game in the Deception series. This series goes all the way back to 1996 on the good old playstation. I remember spending hours as a child playing this game. I know whatyou’rethinking, the math doesn’t add up. One of the previous installments was named Trapt and it was also a lot offun. While I haven’t yet played this one it’s supposed to revisit the mechanics of the first Deception. Here’s how it works.

You are the demon princess Laegrinna living inside a castle minding your own business. Then one day heroes just start showing up and start poking around. Your job, with the help of your three demon minions, is to devise the most insidious, horrible, and in some cases hilarious traps with which to dispatch these intruders. That’s right, you’re the bad guy in this one. Ever wonder how in horror movies and in horror video games why and how all those pitfalls got set up? With this game you are the grand architect of destruction and gore. You’ll feel your soul slipping away within minutes and taking your humanity with it. It’s guaranteed family fun.

There are three types of traps to choose from it would appear, damage traps that’ll put the hurt on your pure hearted sissy victims. Movement traps which should slow them down, and silly traps which do damage or slow them down. With over 120 types of traps to choose from its sure to stay fresh for a long time to come. They even have a delta horse which, if you are a perfectly well adjusted member of society you probably wouldn’t know anything about that.

You can check out the website for the game here: http://www.tecmokoeiamerica.com/deception4/

I consider it a civic duty as a gamer to make as many people aware of this project as possible. This is what you need to know right off the bat. Mighty No. 9 is the creation of Keiji Inafune. I realize this may not garner the shock and awe it deserves so let me spin it like this. You remember Mega Man? – Wait, what? No? What’s wrong with you? I want to make sure you know you are the only person reading this who doesn’t know who Mega Man is (shame on you).

Here’s the important bits, Inafune left Capcom in order to start his own company Comcept. The brain baby of Inafune and Comcept is Mighty No. 9 and its protagonist Beck! Created by Dr. White he is the youngest member of a battle royale team, and for some unknown reason the only member unaffected by a mysterious virus that turns his sibling robots into jerks.

While this may sound a LOT like X, a creation of Dr. Light. fighting against the Mavericks, who were infected by a mysterious virus/program that turned them into jerks. It’s a totally different game! Seriously, while at first glance it may seem like he’s being uncreative and ripping off his own projects the reality seems to be Inafune is taking advantage of the freedom of running his own company to complete the original vision of his work without the tampering of overseers telling him to rush a project or add elements or cut elements. It even appears to use a similar weapon absorption mechanism of Mega Man but with an incredible new take on the concept.

No. 9 doesn’t seem to be a reboot or a replacement for the MegaMan/ Rockman series though so don’t worry about the continuity errors or having the blue bomber erased from history. Check out the kickstarter page for more information here. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/mighty-no-9

The project is already funded but the page is still rife with information. Also check out the home site! It’s over here > http://www.mightyno9.com/

Hi boys and gi- No. That doesn’t feel right. How’s it going Detr- No, no. Hmm. You know what forget the intro for now. I’m your new pal Grimm and I’m here with a whole ton of gaming goodness. Tonight we have a summary from the SXSW Tales from the borderlands panel. The panel consisted of two telltale and two Gearbox representatives. In telltale’s corner they brought in Harrison Pink (ColonialPink), Lead Designer, Tales from the Borderlands, and Kevin Bruner (KevBru), President and Co-Founder of Telltale Games. While Gearbox brought Matthew Armstrong (@MisterArmstrong), Franchise Creator & Director, Borderlands and Anthony Burch (@reverendanthony), Lead Writer, Borderlands 2. Let’s not forget the moderators. From The Indoor Kids, they had Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) & Emily V. Gordon (@thegynomite). As someone who doesn’t traditionally watch or follow panel discussions this was a special treat, of all the people involved in the project these four were exactly who I was hoping to see.

A lot of what this panel covered was the characters themselves. This game centers on two relatively unknowns who until recently remained unnamed. Well now we have names to put with the faces as we meet Rhys and Fiona. Here’s the rundown, Tales from the Borderlands takes place after the events of Borderlands two. Rhys and Fiona are not vault hunters. They are not the penultimate warrior harbingers of death and carnage that we have grown to love with the previous eight or so characters in the previous installments. Tftb is the story of the average Joe trying to make it by in a devastating wasteland. Rhys we learn is a Hyperion employee and hacker. While he bears a slight resemblance to Handsome Jack they were adamant in the assertion that Rhys is not a relative. While Fiona on the other hand is a fast talking con artist that is beginning to run out of places that don’t know her face.

The aim of this game is to create depth for the characters surrounding the world of Pandora. They want to expand the environment to show that this is a world of hard characters living in a hard place in a hard time. That while there is a lot of comedy in this story the world isn’t just a backdrop for the players, and the protagonists to tear up. Which given Telltale games track record I don’t think Gearbox could have chosen a better partner to collaborate with.

As far as the actual story goes not a lot of details were revealed, but they did explain the concept of having two sides to every story, and that it was being called, Two Sides to Every Story. During the panel they talked about how Rhys and Fiona each had their own way of remembering the events and that the truth was somewhere in the middle, but as far as finding the actual truth, don’t hold your breath.

Now, for the two BIG reveals! Skags have no, erm.. backdoor? For the sake of civility. Apparently they regurgitate everything rather than excrete it. If you were an avid Borderlands player that was not poo you were rooting through, and on a less sticky note it was all but confirmed that Claptrap will make an appearance among other well known Borderlands characters.

So there you have it. If your a borderlands fan check out the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxzE9k1CzUw&feature=youtu.be

Hearthstone was created by Blizzard that has entered its open beta on Janurary 14th. I was able to get a beta pass prior and have played around with the game over the last couple of months as well in the open beta. It is a player versus player game that involves cards. These cards are used in combination to destroy their opponent’s cards as well as their lifepoint/health. There are many of game modes you can pick from; from playing against the AI or against a player in normal or ranked matches. You can gain cards through playing to earn coins to buy packs of cards, through “quests” or spending your own real money in the shop.

You can play as many different types of classes, each represented by a hero. Jaina Proudmoore is representing the mage class and I found her to the easiest hero to play while I was learning the game. Each hero has its own mechanics as well as unique cards to its own class.

Hearthstone was design to give card games an online interactive mimic of games such as Magic the Gathering and Yu-gi-oh. Though they do not have a player trading card system to allow for players to trade cards. They have created a more of a crafting of cards system where players take unwanted cards and turn them into dust to craft cards of their choice.

I had watched this game prior to playing it myself on streams of other players. First starting as a “while I’m in queue, I’ll play hearthstone.” The matches are short games where even League of Legends players played and finished while in the queue for games. The scene for this game has grown to be quite large while it is constantly in the top five games watched on Twitch. While playing this game, I found it as a novelty to card games that already existed and had hoped for something to be new. While each class had its own difficulty as well as how well each were balanced against each other, I felt like it was still lacking. The first couple of plays I did with the game were good and I enjoyed it but after it just wore off. I felt myself falling into a bit of disappointment with both my luck in getting cards as well as just feeling like I was playing the same thing again and again. I was never a person fond of cards and had my own few that I did enjoy. The game itself is well designed and I would say it is somewhat balance but still in need of more balancing. It is very enjoyable for those who favour both card games and World of Warcraft.